Can Weeden mirror Flacco's success?

Both the Ravens and Browns used 16 starting quarterbacks in 12-year periods of inconsistency (Baltimore) and misery (Cleveland). The former Browns took off when they quit changing quarterbacks every year. Can the expanion-era Browns do that with Brandon Weeden?

So, the ex-Browns used 16 starting quarterbacks in those dozen years. Their combined record, not coincidentally, was not good — 96-95-1.

The winning percentage changed big-time after that 12-year yo-yo ride. It changed, one can argue, because the quarterback was always the same.

For the last five years, Joe Flacco has been the Ravens’ only starting QB.

Baltimore’s record with Flacco at quarterback, 61-30, is striking by comparison. It includes a 7-4 postseason mark after wins against the Colts and Broncos this month.

From 1996-97, before Flacco, the Ravens never reached the postseason more than two straight years. They have done it five years in a row with him.

He may not be the ideal quarterback. His career passer rating of 86.3 is miles behind Aaron Rodgers’ 104.9 and Tom Brady’s 96.6. On the other hand, he is better than what the Ravens have had. He is the best long-term quarterback the Browns-turned-Ravens have had since Bernie Kosar.

Testaverde was OK at times in spanning the gap between Cleveland and Baltimore, but he reached the playoffs just once.

Kosar and Flacco, on the other hand, both helped the Cleveland-turned-Baltimore franchise to AFC championship games in three of their first five seasons in the league. While Kosar and Flacco are 0-5 in their AFC finals already in the books, Flacco can go where Kosar never did, a Super Bowl, by beating Brady’s Patriots on Sunday.

There is a lesson here, that quarterback problems are the worst kind a team can have. The expansion outfit that replaced “the old Browns” knows it so well.

In the Browns’ first 12 years since coming back in 1999, their starting quarterbacks included (in chunks-of-five):

Whether the Ravens get Flacco to sign a long-term deal or tie him up for just one year as the franchise player, he would blow a hole in the salary cap. Franchise players make the average of the five highest-players at their position. That will exceed $15 million in 2013.

Weeden’s contract, which extends through 2015, is worth a total of $8.1 million.

Meanwhile, the cost of having a man who can end the vicious quarterback cycle is, as the Ravens have experienced and the Browns imagine, priceless.